Page 23 of Secrets of Starshine
I spot Lilly and Meg running around, red plaits flying, both wrapped up warm in exactly the same kind of outfit I was wearing in the picture I found of me and my dad. I close my eyes for a second, and try to reach out and touch that memory, make it real. We were here, all those years ago. He was here. We were together, and happy, and even though that didn’t last very long, at least I had that time with him. It’s more than Meg had.
I see Miranda, standing in the wide-legged stance that late pregnancy requires, chatting to a tall blonde man who I suspect, from the resemblance, is perhaps Connie’s oldest son, James. I see Ella, who is making snowballs and throwing them for her dog, Larry, to chase. Every time he catches one, it disintegrates and leaves him presumably very confused, while everyone around him laughs. Larry is quite the village clown, it seems, and is even wearing a nice tartan coat to complete the image.
Sam is already out there, in a huddle with the other teenagers, holding a black top hat in his hands. I have no idea where he got that from, but work on the assumption that it will soon be on the head of a snowman.
Connie is mooching around in a hot pink faux-fur jacket that makes her look like a giant bon-bon, and two older ladies are laying out trays of cookies on a table. I wonder if they are the same cookies I remember, and if they will smell the same.
I see Archie, standing off to one side, looking on and smiling, but somehow apart from it all. I feel an almost physical thud of sympathy in my heart as I watch him, and am taken aback when at that exact moment he turns his gaze in my direction, and spots me paused in the window. He raises his arm and waves a big gloved hand, and I wave back.
Now I’ve been rumbled, I have to go outside and join them. I can’t stay on the periphery, feeling sorry for them – and, truth be told, a little bit for myself too. It’s snowman time.
I put on my big puffy coat, and make my way outside. I have barely cleared George’s front garden when a snowball thwacks into my face, and I gasp with the shock as it splatters ice against my skin. I even get a bit in my mouth. I wipe it away, and look up, trying to spot the culprit.
Nobody meets my eyes, and nobody looks guilty. Then I spot Sam’s shoulders shaking with silent laughter, and know I have found my criminal. I narrow my eyes as I stride over to him, my boots sinking into inches of snow, Dan and Sophie suddenly busy elsewhere as I approach.
“Oh, hi, Mum!” he says breezily, as though he’s only just noticed I am there.
“Hi, son!” I reply, mimicking his tone. “Just so you know, there will be payback for that. You won’t know when, and you won’t know what, but there will be payback. I will have my vengeance.”
“In this life or the next?”
“Both. Where did you get that hat?”
He looks down at it almost in surprise, and says: “Oh, this…another one of George’s. And before you ask, yes, I did check. He says he only wore it once, when he went to Ascot when he was in his twenties, and since then it’s just been used for kids to dress up in. It inspired me – we’re going to do ‘Snowman at the Races’. It’ll be amazeballs.”
He is almost giddy with excitement, his cheeks rosy from the cold and his eyes wide with good old-fashioned fun. I was never really angry about the snowball – fair game – but even if I had been, seeing him like this would be enough to cancel it out. I give him a quick hug, which he tolerates, and go off to find my own team.
Lilly and Meg are playing with another little girl who looks to be about five or six, chasing each other around in the snow, Larry jumping and skipping along with them. I see that Lottie has had a basket brought out for her, and is curled up in it on the patio – she’s an old lady, I suppose, and has earned the right to a bit of comfort. She even has a fleecy blanket to snuggle up in. I lean down to give her a stroke as I pass, and she regally licks my hand.
Archie grins as I walk up to him, staring at me intently. He takes off his glove and reaches out to touch my head. It surprises me, but I don’t pull away – he is a large man, but comes with none of the bluster that could make him intimidating. I feel his fingers against my hair, his face close to mine, a crooked smile still on his lips. It is not an entirely unpleasant feeling.
“Snowball,” he says simply. “You missed a bit. It was about to melt and drip down your face.”
“That was exactly the look I was going for,” I reply, double-checking to make sure I haven’t missed any more.
“So,” I say, looking around at the crowds, “how does this work, then?”
“Well, it’s a pretty simple technique. You gather snow, make it into a rough approximation of a human figure, and decorate it. Is this your first time building a snowman?”
“Ha ha, very funny – I’ll have you know that I am veteran of such things. Though I’ve never seen quite this much snow all in one place. Who are all these people?”
“Bit of a mix – people who live in the village, and others who are staying at the inn or one of the holiday cottages for Christmas, like the girls’ new friend. She ran up to them, declared her name was Izzy, and they immediately started chasing each other.”
I look on and smile, watching them do exactly that. Young kids are so brilliantly simple in so many ways – so much more straightforward and resilient than us old and battered folk, cowering beneath our layers of experience and shields of social etiquette.
“How was your trip to town?” he asks. “Was the traffic okay?”
Now, of course, I have a much clearer understanding of why he might ask that question, and I nod and reassure him that the roads were fine. I wonder if he feels like this all the time, or if this is just an especially raw time of year for him.
One of the older ladies I saw earlier passes us with another tray of cookies, and the scent of them – almonds, sugar, spice – immediately puts my senses into a tailspin. I follow her with my eyes, lost in the moment.
“Wow,” I murmur to myself, “they really do smell exactly the same…”
I turn back to face Archie, and he looks understandably confused.
“Sorry,” I say, quickly. “It’s just…well, you know how I told you I came here on a bit of a whim? Lastminute.com style? That was because I’ve been here before, so long ago it must have been in the eighties, the land that time forgot. I came here when I was a little kid with my parents, and even though I don’t have proper coherent memories of it, there are certain things that have always stayed with me – like that smell!”
His eyes crinkle at the sides as he smiles, and his green eyes sparkle in a way that takes all the attention away from the hair and the beard that I’m guessing he hides behind. If I’m not mistaken, Archie is a bit of a looker beneath all that fuzz. Hey, who am I kidding? He’s a bit of a looker even with all that fuzz.
